Creating a will can alleviate many legal and financial considerations upon your passing. It’s a legally binding document that ensures your spouse, children, and other named heirs are the beneficiaries of your estate. A will also avoids tying up your estate in a lengthy probate process that can delay the distribution of physical and monetary assets to your heirs.
Deciding who gets what parts of your estate can be a complicated decision. Some people simply split their estate equally among their nuclear children. Others, meanwhile, decide to leave their assets to important friends, non-nuclear family members, or to their favorite charities. In this article we’ll discuss how many beneficiaries you can name in your will or trust.
Who Can You Name as Beneficiary in a Will?
Oftentimes, people will financial assets under trust to a primary beneficiary. You can name multiple beneficiaries, however, and allocate varying percentages of their inheritances according to your wishes. The executor of your will ensures those percentages are met when your assets are dispersed. Some of your assets, such as real estate, may have to be sold in order to equitably divide those assets. Alternatively, though, named beneficiaries can opt to purchase others’ shares if they don’t want to divest real property assets.
If you will all your assets to a primary beneficiary, it’s also important to name a contingent beneficiary, or even two. These contingent beneficiaries will become the inheritors of your estate if the primary beneficiary dies or opts to decline the inheritance. It’s also important to note that if you have beneficiaries named in your life insurance policies or individual retirement accounts, those beneficiaries supersede the beneficiaries designated in your will.
How Many Beneficiaries Can Be Named in a Will?
Truth is, it’s your estate and you can parcel it out any way you wish. You can choose a prime beneficiary if that suits your wishes, or you can name 10 or more beneficiaries. One key factor when choosing multiple beneficiaries, however, is creating equitable distributions to avoid infighting or hurt feelings among your surviving relatives or associates. For instance, if you leave 25 percent of your estate to a favorite niece or nephew but just 5 percent to a stepson, that could create jealousy and bitterness among heirs. Those choices, of course, are yours to make.
There are a few other items to note. If you stipulate a per capita distribution, then each named beneficiary will share an equal amount of your estate. However, if you stipulate a per stirpes distribution, then a named beneficiary’s share of your trust will get passed to his or her lineal children should that beneficiary precede you in death – the other designated beneficiaries won’t inherit that share of your property. This is an important distinction because a per stirpes distribution limits disbursement along family lines rather than to individual family members.
The Bottom Line
Creating a comprehensive estate plan requires the expertise of an experienced estate planner. These legal professionals take a deep dive into their clients’ financial circumstances and distribution wishes and craft estate plans that best meet their clients’ estate and financial legacy goals.
When you create your estate plan, you can name as many beneficiaries as you want; however, the manner in which you stipulate distributions and the amounts you designate can have long-lasting ramifications on surviving family members and other beneficiaries.
